Implementing Software for Auditors

a developer’s point of view

I’m a software engineer. As such I spend a lot of time working with and thinking about the end users of the software that I am implementing. At BPS many of my end clients are auditors. Auditors are a very unique group of customers to write software for. While most people familiar with the development of software have a tendency to believe in the old saying that “No software is perfect, there are always defects” – auditors are a different breed. No matter how thorough your software is tested, there is always something to be improved upon. During the delivery of an audit product to any major audit customer, you discover more corner cases and software quirks than you’d ever expect. Auditors need to quickly sift through huge amounts of information and have a tendency to use software in ways that makes their lives easier, regardless of whether the software was designed with that functionality in mind. The result of auditor testing is always a more robust piece of software that can handle anything you can throw at it – which is what we strive for at BPS.

One of the other unique things about working with auditors is how they define their audit processes. Auditors as a whole have a tendency to be prescriptive with their methodologies, and they will defend an elaborate  process (if it works for them) until the end of time. Here at BPS, we go to great lengths to keep our customers happy – and our audit customers are no exception. Having such meticulous customers demands a higher level of configurability in our software than the industry norm. With audit software, something as simple as the life cycle of an evidence document may have to go through a four step approval process with very specific requirements for each step – and of course no two clients are ever the same. At BPS we do our best to help our clients adapt their processes to be more efficient and standard, but when all else fails our powerful workflow engine, configurable entitlements model, extendable and fully modular architecture and fully developed REST APIs ensure that we are well poised to meet all the requirements that auditors can throw our way – no matter how particular they may seem to a technologist like myself.